Relative unknown looking to tie up first win on tour

Leader Kyle Stanley and his caddie Brett Waldman line up a putt on the 18th hole at the Farmers Insurance Open on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012.

Leader Kyle Stanley and his caddie Brett Waldman line up a putt on the 18th hole at the Farmers Insurance Open on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (K.C. Alfred)

Though Titleist’s tracking says Kyle Stanley’s swing is a smidge slower than it once was, the ball remains a blur. It departs from his driver fairly screaming for sanctuary at an average speed that would win the Indianapolis 500.

The most recent measurement, taken Monday, showed Stanley’s ball traveling as fast as 176 miles per hour. Though ball speed is not the same thing as clubhead speed, it’s a pretty reliable indicator of length off the tee and as good an explanation as any of how a guy so skinny could rank second on the 2012 PGA Tour with an average driving distance of 316.4 yards.

Stanley is the 24-year-old bearded bomber who has turned the Farmers Insurance Open into his personal harvest this week. He is 165 pounds of coiled spring, a triumph of torque over muscle mass, and a personality less provocative than Rickie Fowler’s pants.

That he has yet to win a tournament on the PGA Tour is a condition that will likely be remedied before the sun sets this afternoon at Torrey Pines. Eventually, perhaps, Stanley will be a star. But on a day when the leaderboard elicited more shrugs than shrieks, it sure felt as if Stanley had become the tournament’s dominant figure by default — by the conspicuous absence of Tiger Woods, the fleeting presence of Phil Mickelson and the nagging sense that the more compelling golf was being played in Abu Dhabi.

Not since 1992, when Mickelson and Woods were still amateurs, had a single round of San Diego’s tour stop been played without at least one of the game’s iconic rivals. And though the weather conditions could not have been better had the Convention and Visitors Bureau been at the controls, Saturday’s crowd looked smallish and sounded subdued.

Even by golf’s clubby cultural standards, the tournament felt more like a cocktail party than a competition. There was little of the strategic leapfrogging seasoned fans perform to establish position in large galleries, and a whole lot of loitering.

“They knew this was the place to be,” said the U-T’s incisive Ed Zieralski, “but they didn’t know why they were here.”

This is what happens when a generation of proven commodities begins to give way to a wave of new players with more potential than portfolio, and when a tournament loses its grip on its biggest box office attraction.

Since the last nine players scheduled to tee off in today’s closing round — everyone within seven shots of Stanley’s lead except for Justin Leonard — have won a total of six PGA tournaments, television ratings are likely to tank.

Since the 39-year-old Leonard will be the only player in the last nine groups with a major championship to his credit, today’s Farmers finale should carry all of the cachet you would normally associate with the John Deere Classic.

You can’t script these things, of course. If you could, you would have wanted Mickelson or Ernie Els taking Woods into overtime at Torrey Pines in 2008 rather than Rocco Mediate. You would have wanted Ben Hogan doing battle with, say, Sam Snead instead of Jack Fleck in the 1955 U.S. Open.

But professional golf is, and should be, a meritocracy, and it remains the least subjective of sports. You don’t have to consult an umpire or a replay official to know whether the ball has dropped into the hole. Unlike their contemporaries in team sports, golfers must earn their keep on a weekly basis as independent contractors rather than contract players with guaranteed salaries.

If survival of the fittest means Kyle Stanley, John Huh and John Rollins — a final threesome with zero tour victories — those are the breaks of this precise and grueling game. If Tringale, Blixt and Snedeker sound more like a law firm than the trio tied for sixth place, welcome to PGA 2012.

“I have no clue, really, what to expect tomorrow,” said Jonas Blixt, who earned his tour card last year while playing the Nationwide Tour. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I hope I can go out and take every shot for what it is, and just plug along as I used to and try not to look around too much.

“There is so much stuff going on everywhere, so I just keep my focus and if I can do that, I hope I don’t get too jittery and can play some good golf with these people.”

Before a golfer can contemplate greatness, he has to win for the first time. He has to feel the weight Kyle Stanley will carry to the first tee today, and be able to bear up under that burden.

Outwardly, at least, he seems up to the challenge. Except for fist-bumping his caddie following a 19-foot birdie putt on No. 16, Stanley betrayed almost no emotion coming down the stretch on Saturday.

“I’m kind of an internal guy, I guess,” Stanley said. “But I mean, yeah, winning on tour is something that you dream about as a kid, so it would be certainly nice for it to happen. But like I said, I still have one round left and we’ll see.”